


i will find any way to your wild heart

by AlwaysLera



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Agents of SHIELD, Alternate Universe, Angst, Clint and Natasha are like parallel train wrecks, Deviation from Plot, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I love Fitz and miss Simmons, Past Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Past Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanov, Poor Jemma, Trauma, brain injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 14:08:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2431610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysLera/pseuds/AlwaysLera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha went dark. Against her better judgment, she slipped away to a safe house that only she and Clint knew about, deep in the Adirondack wilderness. When he returns, he finds a Natasha he can't reach. It's been years since he's seen this side of her. The first time Coulson calls them, Clint tells him that they're not coming in. The second time Coulson calls them, he needs help that only Natasha and Clint can provide. </p><p>Leo Fitz suffered from oxygen deprivation for few too many minutes and suffers from aphasia, the inability to find and speak words he once knew. Depressed and isolated, he can't connect with the team. When he becomes a greater liability than an asset, Coulson has no choice. He can't put Fitz at risk, but he can't allow Fitz to risk the lives of the rest of the team. So he calls two people who know how to deal with brain injuries, trauma, and loss better than any two others. He trusts them, after all. They brought him back. </p><p>*SPOILERS FOR: Agents of SHIELD Season 1, Captain America: The Winter Soldier</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will find any way to your wild heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is tangentially related to my other fic, Piece Yourself Together.

 

Clint set the tea down in front of Natasha and settled in the chair behind her. She remained completely still, cross-legged in the Adirondack chair, looking pale and small in her sweatshirt (maroon, HARVARD, emblazoned across the front). Her eyes remained trained on the horizon. It broke a thousand of her rules to be here. She spent most of the morning convinced that the chopper would cross over the house and then anyone could find out where they’d been staying for the last three months since SHIELD collapsed.

Not that SHIELD collapsed, of course. Not according to Coulson. Coulson possessed a fervor to him that set Clint’s teeth on edge. Coulson had always been the even keeled part of the SHIELD cog. He’d been the screw that held everyone together. He’d never become power hungry. He’d never kept secrets. But there was something driving him and Clint could hear it in his voice. Coulson reminded Clint of himself right after New York. Manic and positive that if he stopped moving for a single moment, the entire world would fall apart.

The world had fallen apart. Coulson couldn’t keep it from happening. Coulson wasn’t responsible for it. Not that Clint saying that had mattered. Instead, Clint had messaged Agent May and she’d called him back immediately.

She said she was on top of it, but Clint knew how Coulson could be. There was something magnetic about him, even though he was a stuffy suit sometimes. He told her not to let her feelings hamper her. Her reply had been bitter and cutting.

“I am not you, Barton.” And then she’d ended the phone call.

In another life, Clint would have told Nat about the call and they would have bitched about May. May and Natasha had what both of them called a friendly rivalry at SHIELD. To outsiders, it looked like a war being fought to the death.

May hadn’t even asked about Natasha.

That’d pissed Clint off a little bit if he was being honest. Natasha had done what she needed to do. She’d followed Fury’s orders and risked her life—and apparently her sanity—to do so.

But now they were camping out at a landing site they scouted for a SHIELD plane. For a SHIELD op they didn’t want to take. The first time Coulson contacted them, Clint had been in the house. He’d answered the call. He’d told Coulson to shove it up his ass, and hung up. And he had no regrets. But the second time Coulson called, Clint had been out. Natasha had answered. And Coulson had gotten to her, the way he always did. He appealed to her humanity. There were four people on the planet who knew how to do that. Clint. Fury. Coulson. And Bruce fucking Banner. At least they hadn’t sent Banner.

And Natasha had taken the op. They’d fought about it for hours. Okay, days. _Days_. Then before he knew it, they were out in the field together again. They hadn’t discussed it. Simply started packing surveillance equipment and arming themselves. He took one of his lighter recurve bows. She took knives. He hadn’t seen her pick up a gun since she came to the cabin. It took them three days to find a clearing made by old logging equipment far enough from the cabin to be safe. They sent the coordinates and waited.

It’s been two days of waiting to see if today was the day Coulson sent them their first op.

“Your tea will get cold,” he said to Natasha.

She reached forward, wrapping her thin, blue-nailed hands around the cup. She sipped at it and sighed, settling back in her chair. “It’ll be today.”

Clint fiddled with a setting on the bow. “It won’t be today.”

“Wager?”

He glanced at her sharply. It’d been awhile since she wanted to wager. He considered his options and then said, “A week of fire wood.”

She nodded. “Done.”

And then they waited.

They sat there for three hours until Clint felt a change in the air. The hair on his arms stood straight up and he tilted his head listening to the wind, the mountains, the water far down the road on the lake.

 _Thud, thud, thud_. The quiet change in the air that only people who had spent a lot of time waiting for SHIELD boats to show up could feel.

His eyes shifted to Natasha and for the first time in days, her mouth curved into a smile. Her intense dark blue eyes met his. “You shouldn’t have bet me.”

He swore colorfully and was tempted to do it again when Natasha’s smile only grew wider. He’d do a lot to see that smile on her face. He’d hung up everything to sit here with her for the last three months, after all.

The plane materialized just as it landed on their clearing. Neither of them moved. Natasha sipped her tea. The door dropped open and the first person off the plane was someone neither of them recognized. Clint had an arrow up on his bow and ready before the young woman even straightened. When she did, she froze. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and she wore SHIELD gear but that meant nothing these days.

Natasha turned a knife around in her fingers. The entire mountaintop held its breath.

Coulson stepped onto the ramp. His mouth tightened in irritation. “Agent Skye’s with me, Agent Barton.”

Clint lowered his bow slightly. Coulson’s endorsement counted for a lot, but not as much as it used to. “I am not your Agent anymore.”

Coulson said something to the young woman and Clint glanced at Natasha. She pressed her lips together. So she hadn’t been able to overhear what they were saying. That was annoying.

Coulson approached Clint and Natasha alone. He stopped a few paces off and his gaze settled first on Natasha. “How are you?”

Clint expected silence but instead, Natasha said, “I’ve been better.”

Coulson nodded and looked at Clint. “You?”

Clint shrugged. He didn’t want Coulson to be here any longer than he had to. What happened months ago was Coulson’s fault. The three of them—well, they had had something good together. It’d worked for all of them. But when Coulson died, and then was resurrected, he came back expecting everything to be the same. And it wasn’t. The fight had been terrible but in the end, Clint chose Natasha. He did not choose Coulson and Natasha together.

They hadn’t been all together since then.

Coulson slipped his hands into his pocket. Clint didn’t let go of his bow. Finally, the new director of SHIELD said, “I could use you, you know.”

“Wrong verb,” Natasha said dryly.

Coulson ignored her. “And if this works, then maybe we can talk about ways to work you in that make you feel comfortable.”

Clint could practically hear Natasha’s thoughts dripping off of her. Her ledger was red. And now everyone knew her ledger. He’d be lucky if he got her to go into town with him again. He let an edge slide into his voice. “Just bring him out. We’ll keep him safe for you and see if we can help him. And then you can go.”

Coulson snorted and said, “You two always like to make things difficult.”

“We were the dogs of war for years,” Natasha said coldly. “And I did everything Fury asked me to do. I sat in front of Congress. And then I was told to go dark. What would you like me to do, Director?”

She might as well have slapped him. Even Clint recoiled from the icy truth of her words. If it was just them here, he might have reached for her. But the girl by the plane was watching with too much interest.

“Get the kid, Phil,” Clint said in a low voice.

Coulson raised his hand and the girl at the plane disappeared. She reappeared a few minutes later walking a small, frail looking young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty five, twenty seven at bed. The young man shuffled and stared at his face. His eyes were blank and Clint swallowed back bile. It never got easier, seeing people in a fresh wave of trauma and brain injury.

The girl said, “So you’re the Black Widow?”

Natasha reached forward, taking a hold of the young man on the other arm, just like the girl held him. “I am Natasha Romanov. You may leave.”

The girl’s mouth dropped open and she looked at Coulson who just nodded. The girl stomped back to the plane with such wildly apparent anger that Clint raised an eyebrow. Coulson didn’t turn around to see what he was looking at. Just said, “She didn’t come up through the Academy.”

Clint looked at the young man. “You’re Leo Fitz?”

The young man nodded. Natasha looked at Coulson. “Don’t contact us until we contact you. It’ll be detrimental to Fitz’s recovery.”

And then she began to march the young and formerly brilliant scientist off to the truck parked some distance away. Clint watched her go and then looked at Coulson. “She’s getting there.”

Coulson raised a thin eyebrow. “I know. She sounds better than a week ago when we talked. Do you think you two will want to come back?”

Clint gestured to the scientist. “We’ll see, I guess. But Coulson, I’m serious. You can’t push her. You push her and I’ll take her deeper until you’ll never find us. And if I have to take your scientist to guarantee your respect of that, I will.”

His former lover, former handler, former friend just stared at him. Then Coulson’s brown eyes narrowed and he said, “Fine. But touch base in a month or so help me god, Clint.”

Clint turned around to see Natasha handing Fitz a mug of tea. “I know.”

 


End file.
